keeps off reprehension. Let anyone boldly, and face to face, venture to be more uncivil than themselves, and they would be overpowered at once. Their valour is no better than that of a barking cur, who affrights all that go on without looking at him, but who, the moment he is turned upon with a stamp and a fierce look, retreats himself, amazed, afraid, and ashamed.'

'If you, Mrs. Arlbery,' said the General, 'would undertake to tutor them, what good you might do!'

'O, Heavens, General, suspect me not of such reforming Quixotism! I have not the smallest desire to do them any good, believe me! If nature has given them no sense of propriety, why should I be more liberal? I only want to punish them; and that not, alas! from virtue, but from spite!'

The conversation of the two men of the ton with Camilla was soon over. It was made up of a few disjointed sentences, abusing Tunbridge, and praising the German Spa, in cant words, emphatically and conceitedly pronounced, and brought round upon every occasion, and in every speech, with so precise an exclusion of all other terms, that their vocabulary scarce consisted of forty words in totality.

Edgar occupied the space they vacated the moment of their departure; but not alone; Mrs. Mittin came into it with him, eager to tell Camilla how everybody had admired her turban; how sweetly she looked in it; how everybody said, they should not have known her again, it became her so; and how they all agreed her head had never been so well dressed before.

Edgar, when he could be heard, began speaking of Sir Sedley Clarendel; he felt miserable in what he thought her inconsiderate encouragement of such impertinence; and the delicacy which restrained him from expressing his opinion of the Major, had no weight with him here, as jealousy had no share in his dislike to the acquaintance: he believed the young Baronet incapable of all love but for himself, and a decidedly destined bachelor: without, therefore, the smallest hesitation, he plainly avowed that he had never met with a more thoroughly conceited fop, a more elaborate and self-sufficient coxcomb.

'You see him only,' said Camilla, 'with the impression made by his general appearance; and that is all against him: I always look for his better qualities and rejoice in finding them. His very sight fills me with grateful pleasure, by reminding me of the deliverance I owe to him.'